MediaTek revenue rises to nearly two-year high

MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s biggest handset chipmaker, yesterday reported its strongest monthly revenue in almost two years, fueled by strong demand for its new affordable smartphone chips, mostly from China.

Revenue expanded to NT$9.25 billion (US$309 million) last month, a spike of about 30 percent from NT$7.14 billion in the corresponding period last year. That was an increase of 17.86 percent from June’s NT$7.85 billion.

Last week, MediaTek told investors at a teleconference that sales would grow between 13 percent and 18 percent this quarter to between NT$26.5 billion and NT$27.7 billion, compared with NT$23.44 billion in the second quarter.

MediaTek president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) attributed the growth to strong demand for its new smartphones chips, offsetting the impact of a weak global macroeconomy on the chip industry.

Shipments of smartphone chips would grow 43 percent to 30 million units this quarter from last quarter’s 21 million units. That prompted the company to raise its full-year forecast for smartphone chip shipments to 95 million units, up 27 percent from the 75 million units it estimated three months earlier.

Separately, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s top chip packager, yesterday said revenues grew 2.2 percent to NT$15.68 billion last month from NT$15.37 billion in June. That was an annual increase of 1.7 percent from NT$15.42 billion.

ASE said last week that shipments of its core IC assembly test and material (ATM) business would grow 4 to 6 percent this quarter from last quarter as key customers were scheduled to launch new products. That slightly exceeded a 4.5 percent quarterly growth projected by Credit Suisse.